Merry Little Christmas...

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Need I say more..?

Shell xx

Post Script: I pray your Christmas was very Merry also! xx

On our Anniversary...

You couldn't be here, because you're working so hard abroad to keep our bills paid and our family fed (and a little extra money for Christmas).

Yet you still spoke to me the moment you woke up, by saying Good Morning in your sweet and loving tone.

You still sent me flowers, delivered with love and a hug by a surprise visitor... *thank you*

You wrote me a text which said: "If I could do it all over, the only change I'd make is to meet you sooner."

You still made me feel special, and so loved even from afar.

For Sixteen years I have been your girl.  And I will love you with all that I have, until forever.

Shell xx

12.12.12...

It's been an extraordinary year, round here.

First I have to come to you and say how sorry I am for not visiting, and commenting on your blogs more often, for not making more posts of my own in this space, for not sharing my journey of late in as much detail as I would have liked to.  And believe me, I would have liked to...

You see, my family and I have been thrown into an ongoing crisis by an outside predator for the past twelve and a half months now.  I know you will understand that I cannot talk about the details, and you will pray, or wish us well anyway.

This crisis has been like a fire that tore through my poetic life, leaving the ground blackened, and the sky grey...

Within me, it brought out a very primal 'fight or flight' instinct - which is what caused me to start running and losing weight, toning my body into a stronger machine - a part of my life I had let slip away into a sea of denial and a few too many cupcakes!

I pour my heart out to you now, and why now?  Why today, and not some other day?  Because of this amazing date of wondrous repetition.  Because the number twelve feature's in my blog's title?  Because it finally feels like time?  And I am finally ready to share...

I have been so guarded, and hasten to admit, so uninspired to post because I have been so underneath the monster, licking my wounds on more days then not.

I have only had the energy to keep my children calm, my husband supported, and my house tended to, and to get up in the morning before they wake and rebuild myself mentally and physically by working out - I have obsessed over fitness and overall wellness for something other than the crisis to obsess over!  I hope this is making sense?!

So in many ways I feel like the little flower that bloomed, in spite of the burnt and blackened ground.  That fire which aims to destroy everything always underestimates the plight and vigour of new life born in the aftermath.

And just like that flower, we grow up.  We grow back.

Wider eyed and thicker skinned.

More poetic is a life which faced the fire, and lived to tell.

Shell xx